Dogfight Over Catnaps in Air Tower

WSJ's Andy Pasztore reports the FAA is cracking down on napping by air traffic controllers, even as scientists and union officials feel naps are an essential part of the work schedule.

The question, hard-fought for years, is at the heart of the latest debate over how to improve safety in the sky. Now, with recent incidents of controllers falling asleep at their radar screens and as the Federal Aviation Administration reviews a comprehensive set of fatigue-prevention recommendations, it is growing more urgent.

The FAA, cracking down on controllers sleeping at work, is leery of naps of any kind in this environment, fearing the disorientation they could cause and the complexity and cost of instituting and regulating them. Scientists, union leaders and some of the agency's own experts say brief naps during breaks are essential to enhance safety.

Napping recommendations, submitted by a joint FAA-controller study group and now under review by the agency, are based on the latest advances in sleep science. But amid the heightened congressional and public criticism of controllers—including a tower supervisor, on his fourth midnight shift in a row, who nodded off on duty around midnight at Washington Reagan National Airport last month—they are fraught with controversy. The pilots of two jetliners failed to reach the Reagan National controller by radio and landed safely on their own.

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Participants in a two-year study sponsored by the FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, which represents the nation's roughly 20,000 controllers, have urged allowing naps during extended breaks on midnight shifts, as one of the fatigue-fighting recommendations. Current rules give controllers shorter breaks during which they aren't permitted to doze, even when they are away from their radar screens.

The report concludes that "acute fatigue occurs on a daily basis" for many controllers, and advocates sweeping scheduling changes to alleviate those chronic hazards, according to Natca officials and a summary of the document released at the union's annual safety conference in Las Vegas last month.

Among other recommendations, the study endorses the selective use of "controlled napping"—part of a recuperative rest period potentially lasting more than two hours and allowing controllers to sleep and then slowly regain alertness before resuming their duties. The napping technique is supported by researchers at NASA, international academic and industry experts and several FAA offices and managers, all participants in the study.

The proposals are likely to face stiff headwinds, both from inside the FAA and for their impact on the federal budget. Some FAA managers are already skeptical of the napping concept and are expected to resist its nationwide introduction. For the agency to pursue controlled napping on a large scale, experts in the area believe, it would have to hire additional controllers. The House recently cut FAA spending levels back to 2008 levels.

As a result, many proponents of napping are betting that the most likely outcome is a test program to validate the scientific theories and get the FAA comfortable with controllers snoozing during their breaks.

FAA chief Randy Babbitt was briefed on the controller recommendations earlier this year, as was Hank Krakowski, head of the FAA's traffic-control organization. Rick Huss, a high-level FAA fatigue expert, backs the report. But an FAA spokeswoman said the agency "is just beginning the process of reviewing these recommendations and hasn't made any decisions about next steps."

Peter Gimbrere, Natca's point man on fatigue issues, is optimistic that the package as a whole is gaining momentum. "We're still moving the ball forward," he told the Las Vegas conference.

In an interview, Mr. Gimbrere said that earlier this year, "the leadership of both the FAA and Natca gave the green light to continue to move forward" and lay out the day-to-day implications of the recommendations. The study group is evaluating likely costs, contractual considerations and other potential implementation issues.

Safety experts such as John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, are convinced safety considerations eventually will spur authorized napping. "I think something like that is going to have to be adopted, period," he said.

Robert Francis, another former safety board member, said scientific studies "conclusively prove that [authorized] napping is beneficial and improves overall aviation safety." Over the years, the safety board has been a champion of fatigue-prevention measures, including controlled napping.

With one out of every five controllers subjected to draining overnight shifts, other recommendations aim to shorten those schedules and guarantee extra rest between day and night shifts.

The recent, highly publicized incidents of supervisors breaking the rules by sleeping on duty have made many FAA officials, as well as leaders of the controllers union, warier than ever of likely political backlash. Some want to temporarily put off any public discussion of napping, while others are concerned that budget and discipline issues haven't been adequately weighed.

Mr. Gimbrere of Natca, for example, said the logistics and cost implications of potential changes weren't considered at all in the study. An offshoot of that group is supposed to provide those answers late this summer, and the FAA won't make any decisions until that report has been digested.

According to the study, pilot fatigue has been a factor in at least 14 aviation accidents, resulting in 263 fatalities, since 1993. Controller fatigue hasn't been implicated by the safety board in any recent commercial crashes.

Experts say fatigue can be most acute, and hardest to fight off, for controllers working by themselves between midnight and dawn, when there are relatively few flights. After adding a second controller to the so-called graveyard shift at Reagan National, the FAA is now evaluating whether similar steps are warranted at roughly 30 other fields where the tower sometimes is staffed by a single controller.

Fatigue also can plague controllers during busier periods, depending on "task intensity, time on task and work load" from various responsibilities, according to the study. The report concluded that controllers would likely get most tired at the end of the fourth consecutive midnight rotation—as with the Reagan National controller—and that "proactive naps" prior to an overnight shift can prove "beneficial." The study also recommended a minimum of nine hours' rest between evening and day shifts, and called for reducing the length of certain midnight shifts to seven hours from the current eight-hour norm.

After the notorious Reagan National incident, the FAA suspended the lone supervisor on duty at the time and promised to reassess overnight schedules for controllers nationwide. Last Wednesday, more than a week after the internal FAA debate was disclosed at the Natca conference, Mr. Babbitt told a congressional committee that an air-traffic-control supervisor had been found napping during the midnight shift at the Knoxville, Tenn., airport. Agency officials believe the supervisor intentionally slept after using couch cushions to form a makeshift bed.

The safety board urged the FAA and controllers to agree on techniques to combat fatigue years ago. The recommendation was prompted by the 2006 crash of a commuter jet in Lexington, Ky., killing 49 people, after the plane's pilots mistakenly took off from a shorter runway in the dark. The sole controller on duty told federal investigators he had failed to notice the crew's mistake.

According to Christopher Hart, the current vice chairman of the safety board, "it's a huge, huge fight," generally, to change fatigue rules for any segment of aviation. Mr. Hart told the Las Vegas conference that the board had previously recommended "fatigue countermeasures" for controllers, and "you're working with the FAA to develop guidelines" to reach that goal.‬‪ ‬‪

In 2009, pilot-union leaders and airline-industry officials joined forces to try to persuade the FAA to allow one of the aviators in an airliner cockpit to nod off in midflight, so both pilots would be more alert during critical, often hectic descents and landings. (On flights scheduled for more than eight hours in the air, there are extra pilots, allowing pilots to leave the cockpit and sleep.) A number of foreign carriers routinely allow napping in the cockpit. Pilot groups, airline safety managers and U.S. military aviation experts generally concur that brief naps in the cockpit can enhance safety and overall crew performance, as long as one pilot remains alert at all times.

The FAA, demanding more definitive, real-world data and aware of the likely political backlash, has rejected such proposals for airline pilots. A majority of pilots responding to some confidential surveys have nonetheless reported falling asleep at least once while at the controls.

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